Reigning Bennetts British Superbike Champion Shane Byrne believes care should be taken before this afternoon’s opening race as cold track temperatures are already contributing to crashes at Donington Park.

During qualifying this morning six riders crashed out, mostly at Craner Curves where the left side of the tyre is used for the first time, and Byrne says race direction need to look at the how cold the track is before allowing the race to go ahead at 4.30pm.

“There were a lot of people upside down after that session, and I don’t want to whinge or moan but looking at how many people went down I think that we need to take stock at 4.30 because I had a few moments out there, a lot of others did and there are now lots of smashed bikes down there,” said Byrne, speaking at the track.

“We all want to put on a show and I’m desperate to race but we need to see what the track temperature is looking like this afternoon at around 3.30 to 4 and see if it’s safe enough, rather than all line up and see what happens and who crashes.”

Tommy Bridewell, Gino Rea, Christian Iddon, Jakub Smrz, Taylor Mackenzie and Sylvain Barrier all went down but escaped injury.